This week we spoke with a doctor about why protecting the environment will not only make us healthier but also better equipped to take on future pandemics.

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The global spread of the coronavirus is intricately intertwined with the climate crisis. It is a problem exacerbated (and likely brought on) by environmental degradation of our own making, and how we respond to it could impact the health of the planet, and everyone on it, in ways that reverberate for generations to come.

But fighting a pandemic and fighting climate destruction are not at cross purposes, argues Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital who heads the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In fact, they are one and the same.

HuffPost spoke to Bernstein, an expert on the health impacts of climate change, about how the very actions that could slow climate destruction could also make us healthier, so we can better withstand the next pandemic — or even prevent it from emerging.

More about this issue on Huffpost Impact by Amanda Schupak